1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of automated slicing of food pieces and placement of the slices.
2. Description of the Background Art
High speed automated devices for slicing food pieces, such as potatoes and the like, are known in the art. One such apparatus is the Urschel Model CC, commonly utilized to slice potatoes in the commercial production of potato chips. The Urschel Model CC includes a stationary drum with peripherally mounted knives and a rotating impeller within the drum. Food pieces, such as potatoes, are fed into the drum and forced against the peripherally mounted knives by the impeller with the slices exiting the periphery of the drum. Such drum-type slicers are efficient, and are useful for producing slices which are processed after slicing as a group to form the final product, such as washing and frying of a mass of potato slices in the production of potato chips. However, due to the manner in which slices exit the periphery of the drum upon slicing, such drum-type slicers are not particularly useful for forming slices which must be separated after slicing for further processing.
For slicing elongate food pieces such as loaves of sausage, bricks of cheese and the like, another slicing approach has been utilized by the J. E. Grote Company, Inc. of Ohio. This approach utilizes a stationary horizontal slicing table, above which projects a rotating slicing blade at a slight angle with respect to the plane of the table. A vertically oriented pivoting guide tube carries the food pieces to be sliced above the slicing table and rotating blade, the guide tube including a feed outlet which is reciprocated past the upwardly extending, rotating blade to slice the food pieces at the feed outlet. The slice thickness is determined by the distance the blade extends above the slicing table, the slices dropping by gravity from the slicing blade through a slot in the slicing table adjacent the slicing blade. Grote.TM. slicers have been utilized to monolayer relatively thick slices of elongate food pieces by passing a conveyor beneath the slicing table onto which the slices individually fall.
A Grote-type slicer having a pivoting guide tube reciprocating past a blade angularly projecting above a stationary slicing table is not particularly well suited for slicing non-elongate food pieces such as apples, potatoes and the like at high speed, because of the considerable amount of waste generated during slicing due to the pivoting motion of the guide tubes. The Grote-type slicer does not provide means for supporting the uncut food pieces. The undesirable waste results during pivoting motion of the guide tube when the tailing of an item being sliced, such as the end of an apple, is thrown out of the tube as scrap. Although ejection of non-uniform "ends" may be desirable when slicing salami and the like, it constitutes a substantial economic waste when slicing apples or other fruits and vegetables.
There remains a need in the art for an apparatus capable of efficiently slicing non-elongate food pieces at high speeds without substantial waste, and in a manner which permits monolayering of the slices.